Experimental statistics on taxable payments changed into a regular publication

Statistics Iceland is now adding this publication to its regular publication of wages and income. Figures will be updated every other month.

As of 24 June, tables will be updated in the category wages and income „Monthly taxable payments“. Further information is available in a news release from 24 June 2022.

Taxable payments to individuals

Summary

Monthly taxable payments contain two types of monthly data. Firstly, information on taxable wages (total wage sums), both by economic activity and by municipality, along with the number of employers that pay wages and employees that receive wages. Secondly, types of taxable payments (total sums) which consists of wages as well as other taxable payments such as parental leave payments, unemployment benefits, pension payments and other taxable benefits and payments. The total sums of payments are published by sex, age, legal residence and immigrant status. Self-employed, who receive payments through their own social identity number and pay themselves calculated remuneration, are excluded from the data. For comparison, sums of individual annual earnings by municipality is published which includes calculated remuneration and capital gains, based on annual tax reports of individuals from 2005 to 2019.

The statistical data is preliminary and spans the term from January 2005 for types of taxable payments and from January 2008 for taxable wages by economic activity. Users should note that the data might be subject to some changes due to late returns of pay as you earn data from some payers. Specifically, the latest months of the data, as the timeliness of the publication is quite short, the data being published around two months after the reference period.

Description

The statistical data is based on information from the pay as you earn data and population data from Statistics Iceland. Timely indication on total sum of individual payments (income) has not been published until now, with the publication of Taxable payments (total sum). Statistics Iceland publishes annually statistics on average income based on individual’s tax returns and also annual information about the sum of taxable wages on the Icelandic labour market in the publication of Structural business (business sector/exchange economy) and in Production approach of National accounts on Compensation of employees by kind of activity (entire economy).

Objectives

The purpose of this publication is to give an indication of changes in total sum of payments paid to individuals in Iceland. The Icelandic community has undergone tremendous changes in the last months, particularly due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, there is a significant need for timely information on the development of the labour market and total payments. Statistics Iceland plans to publish this timely indicator of taxable payments as a regular publication, therefore all feedback and suggestions by users are greatly appreciated. For feedback and suggestions please contact wages@statice.is